|  | 7.3 | Novell Routing
| 7.3.1 | Novell RIP

Connecting existing Novell LANs together and supporting large numbers of NetWare clients and servers presents special challenges in areas such as network management and scalability. Cisco IOS software provides several key features designed to make very large Novell networks possible. Cisco IOS software supports the standard Novell RIP, which provides a basic solution for networking Novell LANs together. However, the frequent update messages, the slow convergence when the network topology changes, and the greater than 15 hop count limitation of Novell RIP make it a poor choice for larger networks or networks connected via WAN links. Because Novell RIP is a distance-vector routing protocol, it uses two metrics to make routing decisions: ticks (a time measure) and hop count (a count of each router transversed). Novell RIP checks its two distance-vector metrics by first comparing the ticks for alternate paths. Utilizing ticks as a metric provides a better measurement of the speed of the link. If two or more paths have the same tick value, Novell RIP compares the hop count. If two or more paths have the same hop count, the router load shares. Load sharing is the use of two or more paths to route packets to the same destination evenly among multiple routers to balance the work and improve network performance.
| Engineering Journal
The ipx routing Command

Engineering Journal
The ipx maximum-paths Command

Novell RIP routing table

A router's Novell RIP routing table is different from its IP routing table because the router maintains a routing table for every IPX protocol that is enabled. Therefore, each IPX-enabled router periodically passes copies of its Novell RIP routing table to its direct neighbor. The neighbor IPX routers add distance vectors as required before passing copies of their Novell RIP tables to their own neighbors.

A "best information" split-horizon protocol prevents the neighbor from broadcasting Novell RIP tables about IPX information back to the networks from which it received that information. Novell RIP also uses an information aging mechanism to handle conditions where an IPX enabled router goes down without any exact message to its neighbors. Periodic updates reset the aging timer. Routing table updates are sent at 60-second intervals. This update frequency can cause excessive overhead traffic on some networks.

Engineering Journal
Cisco's Enhanced IGRP

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Novell RIP